NYPD Officer Credited With Saving Life Of 2-Month-Old Bronx Girl

NYPD Officer Johnny Castillo poses with Adelyn Pena-Fernandez, and her mother, Sheila Pena, after he revived the girl when she stopped breathing on Tuesday, Aug. 26. (Credit: NYPD)

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — An NYPD officer was being hailed as a hero Tuesday, credited with saving the life of a 2-month-old girl in a Bronx apartment.

Officer Johnny Castillo was standing outside an apartment building in Fordham Manor Tuesday morning, holding out his radar gun to catch speeding drivers as part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Vision Zero initiative.

Around 11:40 a.m., the four-year NYPD veteran heard about an emergency on his police radio, police said. A woman had called 911 reporting that her 2-month-old daughter, Adelyn Pena-Fernandez, had stopped breathing inside an apartment in the building, police said.

“I ran upstairs and saw the mother and the father standing there over the baby, who was lying on the dining room table,” Castillo, 38, said in a news release. “The baby was blue, not breathing, unconscious. They were scared. They were really nervous.”

Castillo rushed into the apartment and applied four light chest compressions, and before long, Adelyn’s fists clenched, her eyes opened, and she was breathing again. She smiled at Castillo, police said.

“Nothing that I’ve ever done in my life, in my military career or on this job can compare to what happened to me today,” Castillo said in the release.

The girl was hospitalized Tuesday night, police said.

Castillo is also a decorated military veteran, having served as an Army sniper when his armored vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in Baghdad. He also served two Purple Heart medals and a presidential citation from President George W. Bush, police said.